Although there have been sporadic management problems at Pacifica Radio since its founding, the last 10 years have seen an epidemic rise in autocratic and ham-handed attempts by a handful of Pacifica bureaucrats to control content and intimidate programmers and listeners. This has included arrests of listeners, and threatened FBI investigations. Almost all of these debacles have their roots in attempts by the Pacifica national board (PNB) and its handpicked station managers, to block the influence of listener-supporters and local programmers over station content.

Below is a short chronology of some of the more egregious actions that have occurred in the last decade, both the national level and at all five local stations. Notice how battles by the listeners & staff to win back local control ping-pong year after year from one station to another.

1991-1992: Using NPR as a model, Pacifica national management first proposes a National Program Strategy. This goal is to homogenize programming on all 5 stations in the (mistaken) belief that Foundations such as Pew, Ford and MacArthur will fund the network.

1992 (Houston): Pacifica names Barry Forbes as KPFT Manager. Forbes alters or cancels numerous programs he terms "the far left of your radio dial." During that spring fund drive, listenership drops by 18% and donations by 32%. By fall, Forbes had forced out 37 of 90 hosts, despite local opposition. Women’s Action Coalition presents KPFT with 1,000 petition signatures protesting format changes.

1993 (DC): Acting WPFW station manager Tom Porter resigns over the undemocratic nature of process for hiring permanent manager. Hours later, programmers air special program on battles within the station and network. Pacifica Exec. Dir. David Salniker takes WPFW off the air for 3 days, violating federal communication rules, before finding an "acceptable" manager.

1994 (Houston): Garland Ganter is promoted from programming director to KPFT station manager. Ganter proves to be one of the PNB’s most loyal soldiers (See his role in KPFA’s shutdown, below). Despite his beginnings as an AM radio newsman, Ganter proves unable to produce any local news during his time at KPFT. Under his tenure, community affairs programming also reaches a new low.

1994 (DC): At WPFW, protests, petitioning and union organizing go on all year. Management holds mandatory staff "training" and then fires programmers who refuse to change their "attitude problems."

1995 (LA): New KPFK Manager Mark Schubb tells delegation of dissident listeners that they could easily be replaced by new listeners through program changes.

Aug. 1995 (Berkeley): KPFA Manager Marci Lockwood begins massive purge of programmers, including many leftists, particularly people of color.

1995 Community observers barred from the 9/95 PNB meeting in Houston.

Prompted by news coverage of the exclusion, a CPB investigator probes Pacifica’s violation of open-meeting rules. Pacifica intervenes, and within 17 days, investigator is fired. In 12/96, another CPB inspector was fired on verge of filing report citing PNB violations of open-meetings rules. CPB inspector’s report says PNB violated open-meeting rules. CPB Board, after private meeting with Pacifica officials, whitewashes staff report and praises Pacifica.

May 1996 (NYC): Pacifica management asks National Labor Relations Board to remove unpaid producers at WBAI (90% of staff) from the union contract, clearly seeking to ease a future purge. BAI programmers had first unionized in the mid-1970s to prevent a previous attempt at mass-firings.

March 1997 (LA): KPFK Program Director slashes programming for the huge Latino community.

July 1997 (LA): KPFA Manager Lockwood resigns, replaced by Lynn Chadwick, director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and a true believer in

government regulation of community broadcasting.

Sept. 1997: Mary Frances Berry, Chair of Clinton’s Civil Rights Commission, takes over as PNB Chair. Ms. Berry will prove to be the most divisive and autocratic chair that Pacifica has ever suffered with.

Oct. 1998: Continuing the Pacifica policy of "failing-upwards" KPFA’s Lynn Chadwick is promoted to Pacifica Executive Director.

Feb. 28, 1999: The PNB amends its bylaws to end elections of its members by local boards, thus becoming self-selecting. As a justification, Pacifica had purposely solicited letters from the CPB threatening a cut-off of funds unless changes in governance were made (the CPB did not demand the specific changes that the PNB proposed).

March-August 1999 (Berkeley): A Meltdown at KPFA occurs almost immediately following the PNB’s actions (See inset). During the four-month struggle, Pacifica management directs the arrests of numerous KPFA listeners and nearly bankrupts the network hiring security guards and public relations firms to defend their indefensible actions. In the end, Pacifica retreats, leaving KPFA programmers (largely) in control.

Oct. 1999 (L.A.): KPFK cancels Radio Chicana (program on Chicano, indigenous and Mexican issues) after anchor John Martinez airs segment on KPFA crisis.

Nov. 1, 1999: Pacifica National News Director Dan Coughlin removed after airing news brief on one-day boycott of Pacifica programming by Pacifica affiliates. News Anchor Verna Avery-Brown walks off job in protest, later resigning after 11 years to decry trend away from progressive coverage.

Jan. 2000: Pacifica Network News stringers strike to protest network-wide censorship. Thousands of progressives and unionists eventually support strike. The stringers begin a weekly (then daily) news broadcast that is carried to this day on over 50 community radio stations, in place of Pacifica Network News.

Feb. 26, 2000: At PNB meeting, Chadwick resigns, later succeeded by WPFW Manager Bessie Wash; Mary Frances Berry say she’ll step down when term expires in Oct.; PNB elects as new members HMO attorney John Murdock, broadcast investor Bertram Lee, CPA Valrie Chambers, and two activists, Leslie Cagan and Beth Lyons. Audience research consultant says Pacifica has not been mainstreamed fast enough.

June 2000 (DC): After WPFW Local Advisory Board adds PNB critics to its ranks, Station Manager Lou Hankins bans it from meeting at station, citing unspecified "security threats."

Sept. 15-19, 2000: Listeners at all 5 stations and (separately) 2 dissident PNB members sue PNB, demanding removal of illegally seated members. Listener suit backed by CA Attorney General.

Oct. 2000: After months of pressure on Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman (including stripping her credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention), Pacifica threatens to fire her if she does not give advance notice of speaking engagements and show topics. (In a Sept. 14 meeting, several Pacifica station managers had attacked her coverage of police brutality, Abu-Jamal and other issues, while WBAI’s Van Isler defended her work.) Goodman, with her union’s support, files grievance charging management with harassment, gender harassment and censorship.

October 31, 2000 (Berkeley): KPFA holds an unprecedented listener election for its Local Advisory Board (LAB) representing the first democratic election of any board in the 51-year history of Pacifica. Eleven candidates are elected from the community, as well as five from the station staff, using a proportional representation model. Twenty-five percent of KPFA subscriber-base cast votes, with 5,538 paper and email ballots counted.

Jan 22, 2001 (NYC) PNB member John Murdock circulates to colleagues proposed by-laws changes to reduce board’s size and allow 5 members to make key decisions–such as selling a station–on 24-hours notice. In weeks following, hundreds of emails of opposition pour in to PNB.

February 10-15, 2001 Epstein Becker & Green, union-busting law firm defending Pacifica against three suits, threatens to sue three free-Pacifica groups, claiming their web site names www.wbai.net, www.savepacifica.net, and www.wbaifree.org constitute "unlawful use" of WBAI or Pacifica trademarks.

March 3-5, 2001 (Houston): Hundreds from around country converge for teach-ins and pickets against PNB ruling majority. Dozens speak at open-mike during Board meeting. Later, 100+ turn their backs and chant "Resign Now!," throwing the meeting into chaos. Activists from 5 stations form embryonic national Pacifica listener coalition, set tentative action plans.

March 23, 2001 (Houston): KPFT manager Garland Ganter scuffles with a protester at the station.

June 13, 2001: After intense activist pressure campaign against reactionary Board members, and effective listener boycott of Pacifica's spring pledge drives (20% drop network-wide; 50% at WBAI), PNB Chair David Accost and PNB member Karolyn van Putten resign.

June 17, 2001: PNB Vice-Chair Ken Ford instructs other board members to turn over listeners email to him so he can ask the FBI to investigate them.

After 10 years of struggle, the listeners of Pacifica Radio are close to reasserting control of the stations. Removal of the remaining anti-democratic members of the PNB is an important step in bringing local control back to each of the stations. We urge you to support that end.